1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical module, or more particularly, to an optical module having a surface emitting laser diode or a vertically illuminated photodiode packaged, such as an optical transmission module or a CAN module.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in the field of information and telecommunications, data communication networks over which a large amount of data is transferred at a high speed using light have been rapidly brought into service, and optical fiber networks such as a backbone network, access networks, and metropolitan area networks have been deployed over the relatively long distances of several kilometers or more. In the future, it will prove effective to utilize optical data transmission over such a very short distance as a distance between pieces of transmission equipment (from several meters to several hundreds of meters) or an intra-equipment distance (several centimeters to several tens of centimeters) for processing the large amount of data without delay. Along with prevalence of high-definition images, even pieces of commercial off-the-shelf equipment including video equipment such as a video camera, a personal computer, and a portable cellular phone will be requested to transmit a video signal between a monitor and a terminal at a high speed over a large-capacity cable. Adopting optical data transmission lines will be found effective. Existing optical modules are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2005-85942, Hei 10-039162 and 2008-277445.